Typesetting review scale and guide This entry was posted by herkz.
Explanation of typesetting grading scale
Grading scale
A+, A: Typesetting greatly improves the viewing experience or is unobtrusive when not able to. Great attention to detail in terms of fonts, colors, borders, shadow, multiple layers, movement, alignment, rotation, etc. Typesetting replicates the original signs perfectly. Typesetting uses new and creative ways to tackle problems. This grade will be very hard to get unless the typesetting is perfect. This grade is impossible to get on shows with little or no typesetting. This grade is also impossible to get without original or creative typesetting.
A-, B+: Like the A+ and A grades, these grades require the typesetting to greatly improve the viewing experience. This grade will be given to typesetting that is very good but does not use every tool available. This grade will also be given if the typesetting is in the A+ or A range but not every sign is done. This is the best grade that can be given on shows with little or no typesetting.
B, B-: Typesetting in this grade range still improves the viewing experience, but there may be a lack of attention to detail or some signs missing.
C+, C, C-: Grades in this range will have signs that convey the information, but don’t do much to improve the viewing experience. However, these signs are not so bad that they actually make the video look worse. Examples of typesetting in this range are things like CR, etc.
D+, D, D-: Typesetting is not done or what is done is very poorly done. Shows with lots of typesetting and important signs that are not done will fall in this range. Typesetting that is done is not so bad that it is useless, but very, very poorly done. Examples include Funi, Niconico, TAN.
F: Typesetting is so bad it actually makes the viewing experience worse. Font choice is awful, no blur, typesetting covers up signs. Very little or no typesetting is done at all. This grade is impossible to achieve on shows with little or no signs.
H Typesetting is hardsubbed. This is basically worse than an F.
As you may have noticed from above, the amount of signs in a show (and how many are plot relevant) will have an impact on the grade. A release with good typesetting that skips relatively unimportant signs can still achieve an A-. A show will very little typesetting that has none of it done would still only receive a C.
Types of things I look for in a good release
Fonts: Font choice matches the original as exactly as possible. Sans serif fonts are used when the original in sans, serif when the original is serif. Handwriting fonts are used when the original is handwriting. The font is similar in thickness. The font size and scaling match the original if there is room or are appropriately sized if there is no room. The choice is diverse and does not use Japanese fonts, Adobe fonts, or common fonts like Arial, etc.
Color: Typesetting matches the color. Almost all the time this will be incredibly easy to do so failing this will have a large impact on the grade.
Border: Good typesetting will match the border size, no matter the number. This section relates a lot to the layers section.
Layers: Typesetting for signs that need blur and a border will have multiple layers. Signs that have multiple borders will have as many layers as necessary.
Blur: Almost every line should have blur. Appropriate amounts of blur should be used to match the original. Incorrect amounts of blur are much, much better than none at all. Blur with borders should be used to match effects correctly.
Rotation: As far as z-rotation goes, the sign should be very, very close to the original. For x and y rotation it should at least be rotated in the correct direction. Extra points will be given for the use of the origin tags for rotation (assuming it actually looks better).
Shearing: This is the fax and fay tags. The fax tag is incredibly useful on rotated signs and lack of it will result in a lower grade. fay can be useful but also has many bugs with vsfilter.
Alpha: This includes the use of fad. I don’t expect the alpha to be perfect, but transparent signs should have transparent typesetting. This is especially important and noticeable with shadows. As far as fades go, they should be frame exact or very close.
Alignment: Signs should have correct alignment. If the original is all left-justified, an7, an4 or an1 should be used. This tag will also have an effect on rotation.
Positioning: Typesetting should obviously be around or near the original sign. Consistent positioning is also a plus.
Movement: Movement should match the the original exactly. If the movement is non-linear, the sign should either be static, use the move tag if it’s close enough, or use Mocha. Extra points will be given for use of Mocha.
Animated transform: This is the t tag. It can be applied to almost everything so I won’t go into much detail here. I will cover it in the review if it used well (or not well).
Clipping: Typesetting should be correctly clipped if it “runs into” a moving object. Lack of clipping or bad clipping will result in a reduced grade.
Masks/drawing mode: An improved score will be given to typesetting that uses masking to cover signs assuming the typesetting is well done in every other category. This is also very useful for complex clips.